The three of us sat around the fire, sipping water and chatting about lighter things, but it didn’t take long for the fatigue to settle in.Maybe twenty minutes later, Jordy yawned and suggested we head home right before I was about to do the same.
“Thank you for having us,” Jordy told Daiyu again as I started pulling on my boots.“Next time we’ll have to have you over to my place, although I’m not nearly as good a cook as you or Trevor.”
“You bring the dessert, we’ll bring the dinner,” Daiyu countered with a grin.
Upstairs, we heard the shuffle of heavy feet on creaking floorboards, and Trevor let out a loud groan.
“Oh, no, it really sounds like he’s not feeling well,” she said, looking toward the loft with a frown.
“If you want to go check on him, we can see ourselves out,” Jordy offered.
“Maybe I –” Daiyu was starting to say, but she stopped when Trevor came staggering toward the wood railing that ran along the edge of their loft.“Do you need something, honey?”
“Trevor, are you okay, pal?”Jordy called up to him, and he moved toward the staircase.“Stay back from the ledge since you’re not so steady on your feet right now.”
Trevor ignored them both and took another lumbering step toward the railing.Daiyu yelled again, and Jordy started up the stairs, but it was too late.Trevor crashed right into the railing and fell over, landing on the floor with a squelching thud.
“Trevor!”Daiyu screamed, and she ran toward him.
I grabbed her arm, stopping her before she reached him.
“Let go of me!He’s hurt!”she snapped at me.
“No,” I insisted.“Something’s not right with him.”
Jordy was coming back down the stairs, and Daiyu looked like she meant to argue, but everything stopped when we all heard Trevor let out a long, low death groan.
56
Remy
“No, no,no,” Daiyu cried out, her words getting more desperate.“How could this have happened?”
Trevor lifted his head and started pushing himself up, completely unmindful of the jagged bone sticking out of his arm.He looked over at us with glassy eyes bloodshot with veins gone green from the infection.
“He must’ve been bitten on his hunting trip,” Jordy reasoned, since he’d just returned with the prized mountain goat.
Daiyu shook her head frantically.“No, he wouldn’t have hid that.He never would’ve hidden something like that from me!”
How he was infected was really beside the point at the moment.Not long ago, Trevor had been a hulking man, but now he was a hulking zombie staggering back to his feet, and he posed a real threat to all of us.
All of the night’s earlier bliss had completely evaporated.I was a rigid livewire, and I wasn’t about to let any zombie take down anyone else I cared about.
My maul axe was at home, but it was just as well, because I shouldn’t really be swinging something that heavy yet.I grabbed the lighter poker from the nearby hearth.
As Trevor lumbered toward me and Daiyu, Jordy launched himself from the mid-point of the stairs, and he landed on Trevor’s back.His arms wrapped around the zombie’s neck, using them to clamp the gnashing jaws shut.
Daiyu darted around them, avoiding Trevor’s long arms as he flailed about.She ran to the kitchen, while I started swinging at Trevor’s thick legs and knees.I was afraid to aim the poker at his head, because if I missed, I could seriously hurt Jordy.
Each of my swings did nothing.I know I wasn’t as strong as I once was, but it was like fighting a brick wall.He staggered and lumbered, and I dodged his powerful arms, while Jordy held his head and kept him from biting anyone.
A moment later Daiyu came running back into the room carrying something long and sharp in her hand.At first, I thought it was a unique stick or some kind of magic wand, with the pitch-black color and twisting ridges.But when she raised it up, I realized it was one of the subtly curved long horns from the beautiful mountain goat.
“Get him to the ground, and I will finish him!”Daiyu commanded, as if that hadn’t been what we were trying to do.
I gritted my teeth, and with all my might, I swung the poker like a bat against the back of Trevor’s knees.They finally buckled forward, and Jordy used his weight on his back to knock Trevor face first into the floor.
Daiyu ran over, and Jordy moved out of the way as she raised her arms over her head.Trevor was already trying to push himself up again when she drove the goat horn straight into the back of his skull.
